


Two Birds in the Courtyard

by Caeslin



Category: Hatoful Kareshi | Hatoful Boyfriend
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Human, BBL spoilers, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-19
Updated: 2015-10-19
Packaged: 2018-04-27 02:42:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5030578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caeslin/pseuds/Caeslin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(BBL spoilers) A day in the life of two brothers in hiding. Hitori, Nageki, and the little rituals that help them stay afloat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Birds in the Courtyard

**Author's Note:**

> This fic diverges from canon, but still contains spoilers for the BBL/Hurtful Boyfriend route of Hatoful Boyfriend, as well as strong sibling feelings that can be construed as either platonic or romantic, depending on your preference.
> 
> (Also mirrored at [Livejournal](http://caeslin.livejournal.com/12937.html) and [Dreamwidth](http://caeslin.dreamwidth.org/12638.html).)
> 
>  
> 
>  _裏庭には２羽ニワトリがいる　|| Uraniwa ni wa niwa niwatori ga iru_  
>  'There are two chickens in the backyard.'  
> \-- tongue twister

When Hitori wakes, the first thing he does is to look for Nageki.

Today, he finds him sitting by the window, reading. The sun is just beginning to rise in the courtyard outside, casting a pink light over the room. At the rustle of the bed sheets, Nageki looks up.

"Good morning," Hitori says. 

"Morning."

"How are you feeling? Did you sleep enough?"

Nageki nods. "Mm. About five or six hours."

Which isn't enough, really, but it's typical for Nageki nowadays. Hitori would be a hypocrite if he complained. He'd also be a liar if he said he didn't find it reassuring to see Nageki up and alert.

"Are you hungry? Thirsty?" Hitori asks.

Nageki shakes his head. Hitori gets out of bed anyway; now that he's up, he knows he won't be able to fall back to sleep. 

"I'm going to fix myself a little something. You don't have to eat unless you're hungry."

One of the agents came by with groceries last night, so the fridge is full. Hitori will never stop finding it ironic that they have more to eat here than they ever did at the apartment or the orphanage; he's not certain how the Dove Party even gets its money, but there's evidently enough of it to keep two runaways well-fed. 

He heats up a kettle of water and slices up carrots and onions for soup. He washes rice and puts it in the rice cooker. In between tasks, he steals glances at Nageki, absently cataloging the position of his back, his arms, his wrists. 

“Make sure to shift positions every once in a while,” he says.

"I know."

"And don't forget to do your stretches."

"I _know._ "

"I know you know. It's just my job as your big brother to pester you."

Nageki rolls his eyes, but he's smiling as he turns back to his book.

The kettle beeps; Hitori switches it off. He brews two cups of tea: sencha for Nageki, straight black tea for himself. The warm, rich scent wakes him up.

Once Nageki's cup has cooled, he takes it over and places it on the windowsill beside him. From behind the pages of his book, Nageki nods in thanks.

He's still reading _Kafka on the Shore_ , a book whose title sounds vaguely familiar to Hitori but which he's never read himself. He asked what it was about a few days ago, and the only thing he remembers from Nageki's summary is that it involves a cat. Evidently something in it appeals to Nageki, though; he hasn't put it down all week.

"You must be getting close to finishing that one," Hitori says. "Do you want me to ask them to pick up more novels? I'm sure they can stop by a bookstore the next time they go shopping for us."

"I'll think about it."

"Let me know if you'd like any recommendations." In fact, Hitori doubts that there's any book he could suggest that Nageki hasn't already read; he's never been half the reader Nageki is. But he feels like he ought to offer, all the same.

"All right."

When breakfast is ready, Nageki obligingly comes over to sit at the table with Hitori, but he takes only a few sips of the soup, and leaves the rice untouched. Hitori has to keep himself from watching too obviously; he knows from experience that pushing Nageki to eat more will just reduce his appetite further. Still, it worries him to see how hollow Nageki's cheeks have gotten lately, how thin his wrists are; when he was in the emergency ward, they fed him through a tube, but ever since coming off it, he's been losing weight. He’s supposed to take a nutritional supplement every day, but Hitori suspects he can’t get everything he needs from that alone.

Hitori doesn't have much of an appetite himself, but he cleans his plate, to set a good example. By the time they're done clearing the table, the room is awash in sunlight. It looks like it's going to be a warm, cloudless day.

-

They get ready for the morning in silence, everything at this point a familiar routine: dressing, brushing teeth, navigating around each other in the tiny living room. Hitori does dishes and puts the bed linens in the laundry to wash, while Nageki takes his medicine and does his stretches. When everything's in order, Hitori grabs a hairbrush from the vanity, and goes over to join Nageki on the couch. Nageki scoots over and turns so that his back is to Hitori; shivers and then relaxes, just a fraction, as Hitori brings the brush up to his scalp.

He started doing this just after Nageki was moved out of intensive care, when he still had his splints on. Now Nageki has gotten most of his range of motion back, but he continues to entrust this one task to Hitori, possibly because he finds it soothing, and possibly just because he knows that Hitori enjoys doing it for him. It reminds Hitori of the early days at Heartful House, when Nageki was still so small that he needed Hitori's help with the smallest tasks.

He works the brush gently through Nageki's hair, carefully working out the tangles, making sure not to put any pressure on his shoulder where the bandages are, until it's smooth and shining. It's grown back to the length Nageki used to keep it, falling just beneath his chin. 

"What do you think?" Hitori asks. "Should we get this cut?"

"I don't know. If you want to." It will be Hitori who does the cutting, of course, since they can't very well go to a barber.

"Hm. Maybe when it gets a little warmer. Wouldn't want your ears to get cold."

Come to think of it, Hitori is probably overdue for a trim himself. It's been the last thing on his mind lately, but it's starting to get in his eyes. It will be nice to have it off his neck, when summer comes.

-

At ten, they go down the hall for Nageki's physical therapy session. The Dove Party doctors say that Nageki will have to continue therapy for at least a year in order to get back the strength and mobility he had before the fire; they're optimistic about a full recovery, but so far progress has been been hard-won and slow.

Hitori waits outside while Nageki goes in to meet with the doctor. He can see into the room through an observation window -- the one condition he insisted upon before letting Nageki attend these sessions -- but he's been forbidden from accompanying Nageki in person.

On this side of the glass, he can't hear what the doctor is saying to Nageki. He can't hold Nageki's hand when he winces in discomfort, or give him encouraging words as he holds his stretches. The hour seems to stretch on endlessly. But at last Nageki is ushered out, looking only a little more drained than he did when he went in.

"Everything's looking positive," the doctor says, in the same dry tone she always uses with Hitori. "Just make sure he holds those flexion positions, and does his stretches every hour. He should be able to do them unassisted by now."

"He is, thank you." 

"The same goes for ADLs. It's important for him to be working towards full independence at this point."

"Yes, I agree. We're working on it."

Hitori knows the doctor believes he's doing too much for Nageki around the house. He couldn't care less what the woman thinks; he and Nageki are perfectly capable of working out their own routine. Still, it's easiest to tell her what she wants to hear.

"Good." She turns to Nageki, and her expression warms. "Good work today, Fujishiro-kun. I'll see you this time again tomorrow."

"Thank you."

"We'll see you then," Hitori says. He turns away, knowing without having to look that Nageki will follow.

-

Today, there are no Dove Party members on patrol, and they walk through empty hallways back to their room. Their footsteps echo against the linoleum flooring. In Hitori's opinion, these halls would be much improved by some windows, but he supposes that security takes priority over natural lighting.

Nageki rests in bed while he fixes lunch. When Hitori finishes eating his own portion and tucks Nageki's share away in the fridge, he can't relax, so he dons gloves and starts cleaning. It's a habit left over from the first months he was here, when Nageki was on life support and every week brought a new, harrowing medical emergency: a graft that didn't take, an inexplicable fever, an infected wound. Back then Hitori was only allowed to visit him in the ward for minutes at a time, only allowed to touch him through the plastic membrane of gloves, and even then he hadn't been able to shake the gut-clenching certainty that his touch would be the thing that got Nageki killed.

Nageki's out of the worst of the danger. The habit has persisted. For two hours Hitori scrubs the floors and countertops and tables, sterilizes the doorknobs, disinfects every inch of the shower room and toilet, until the surfaces gleam and his joints ache. When he's done, he washes his hands quietly, so as not to wake Nageki, in water as hot as he can stand.

-

Hitori isn't sure when they'll be able to return to the outside world, but until they can, he wants to make their days as normal as possible. This means he has to keep Nageki up to date with his schooling.

"So," he says, setting today's textbook in front of Nageki with a decisive 'thump.' "I hope you're ready for a very exciting math lesson."

" ... If I say no, can we study something else?"

"No. But today will be fun! Today, we'll learn about matrices."

Nageki fails to look impressed at this revelation.

"Do you want to know why matrices are exciting? Because you can use them to solve systems of equations. Which I know you love."

"I don't even remember what those are."

Hitori laughs. "Well, then, this will be the perfect opportunity to catch up. Let me see your notebook for a second." Nageki obediently hands it over. "See, when you have a set of function that looks like this ...."

Part of Hitori still wishes that Nageki could have stayed at a real school. As nice as it is to teach Nageki himself, he knows that he would thrive in a classroom environment. Nageki is a model pupil: serious and diligent, committed to learning everything that's taught to him, even the subjects he finds difficult. Despite his protests, he listens to Hitori talk about matrix properties for a good thirty minutes.

"Nice work," he says, once Nageki has completed the day's practice problems. "I think that's enough for today. See if you can get through the problems on this page by next week."

Nageki scrunches up his nose.

"All right, all right. We'll do Japanese tomorrow. See, I can be nice sometimes."

"You're not nice. You're evil. Only evil people could like math."

"No, no, if I was evil, I wouldn't teach you any math at all. And then where would you be when you needed to figure out what time two airplanes would cross paths in midair?"

"On the ground?"

Hitori sighs. "Where did I go wrong with you? Enough. Go read you book."

He can't help but smile as he watches Nageki retreat. 

-

In late afternoon, they take a walk in the courtyard. It feels like just yesterday it was winter, but now the trees are budding with new leaves, and blades of grass have begun to poke out from under the gravel. One of these days, Hitori thinks he might just give into temptation and start weeding. This is the only outdoor space they have nowadays, and with the party agents too busy with their own affairs to do anything as pedestrian as to hire a gardener, he might at least try to make it pretty.

"Do you think I should try to start a vegetable garden out here?" he says.

Nageki frowns. "What could you grow?"

"Lots of things. Tomatoes. Goya. Eggplants. Strawberries."

"Would they let you?"

"I don't see why not. Secret agents need vegetables too."

Nageki doesn't respond, and Hitori supposes that's his answer.

But then once they've nearly completed a circuit around the yard, Nageki says, "Strawberries might be nice, I guess."

"Oh. You think so?"

"Mm. The ones you grew at Heartful House were always so sweet."

Hitori has to keep himself from sounding too excited. Excitement will scare Nageki away. "Well, they're certainly not hard to grow. They'd do well over in that corner, where it's sunny. If we got them soon, we could eat them in a month or so."

Nageki looks over at the area indicated, considering.

"I had no idea you liked them so much, though -- you should have said something! I would have given you more."

"You gave me plenty."

"But I could have given you _all_ of them, if I'd known. I would have, too; you were so hard to spoil when you were little. You never asked for anything."

Nageki's cheeks redden. "I didn't need to. You always did too much anyway."

"Most children would be happy about that. Think of Hoppe. Would Hoppe have ever turned down a chance at extra strawberries?"

In fact, Hoppe had eaten so much fruit from the garden one year that she had made herself sick. Hitori feels an unexpected pang of sadness, remembering it. Some days he almost forgets that everyone is really gone.

A sudden touch on his forearm brings him back to the present. Hitori meets Nageki's eyes, and nods at him in thanks.

"I'll ask someone about getting plants tomorrow," he says. 

He pictures himself in the dirt, planting seeds and watering them, getting earth between his fingers. Nageki can help too. Maybe between the two of them, they can start to smooth the edges of these old memories, begin to make new ones. 

-

Hitori misses the days when he could just walk down to the convenience store and buy a newspaper. The agents bring him a copy with his groceries, but those only come once a week, and he wants to know what's happening every day. He doesn't delude himself into thinking that there will be any articles about the Hawk Party, but there might be some sign of them buried in another story, some hint to their current whereabouts or agenda, some offhand mention of the doctor who kept Nageki hostage. 

No doubt the Dove Party is keeping tabs on the situation, but they never tell Hitori any of their plans. Perhaps they don't trust him; perhaps they worry that he might be a liability to the organization if he's ever captured.

Hitori pores over the papers he does receive, circling passages that seem like they could be relevant. Nothing appears suspect about this most recent issue. There's been a small earthquake in Kanagawa. An invasive species of blister beetle was spotted in Osaka. A butter shortage has been forecast for this summer.

He reads to the end of the issue, then clips out the crossword puzzle on the last page. He turns toward the sofa to hand it to Nageki when his heart nearly stops in his chest, because Nageki is collapsed on his side, face buried in the cushions.

Nageki's name is halfway out Hitori's mouth before he notices the regular rise and fall of his shoulders. Is he asleep? But just then his arms shift, pulling one of the cushions close against his chest.

On closer examination, Hitori can see the whiteness of Nageki's fingertips where they clench the edges of the pillow; the tension in his back, his shoulders, his arms, just barely contained. He is silent because he's making every effort to be silent, but he's shaking.

Hitori says nothing, but emotions bleed through him in waves: anger, worry, sadness, and finally exhaustion. It's difficult to make himself turn away and pretend like he doesn't see, but he does it, and hates himself for doing it.

Fifteen minutes later, Nageki is sitting back upright, breathing evenly, eyes only a little bit red. Hitori brings him a cup of tea.

"Thank you." Nageki's fingers brush soft against Hitori's own as he takes the cup from his hands. Nageki smiles, and Hitori wishes he could make himself believe it isn't just for his own benefit.

-

Nageki's only ever told him bits and pieces of what happened in the lab. The rest Hitori has inferred from the deep, heavy silences Nageki sinks into on a regular basis; the frequency of his nightmares; the way he occasionally lets touches linger in a way he never allowed before the incident. Some days he seems to need Hitori's company more than ever. Others, he draws deep into himself and is utterly impossible to reach.

He's never blamed Hitori for any of it except for just once, when he was still heavily medicated, when he held Hitori's wrist like a lifeline and asked him in a small, miserable voice, "Why did you save me?"

He'd fallen back asleep before Hitori could formulate any sort of answer. The truth is that he has no answer to give. He never intends to tell Nageki about the guilt that weighs on his breast every day, heavy as an anchor -- just like he'll never admit that he would always choose Nageki, without a second's hesitation, even if it meant a hundred other people dying in his place.

-

Night falls. Hitori helps Nageki undo his bandages, and they take turns in the bath.

Afterwards, they relocate to the bed. This is the only time of day Hitori gets to see the full extent of the scarring that runs across Nageki's back and arm, red like a brand against his pale skin. 

Hitori opens the jar of moisturizing cream on the nightstand. Nageki's scar tissue doesn't have oil glands, so it gets dry and itchy on its own; the cream helps provide some relief. It's cool and soothing against his fingers.

Without speaking, he gently, thoroughly works the cream into Nageki's skin. Nageki stays perfectly still, obedient as always. Hitori relaxes into the familiar routine of it: the smell of the salve and the heat of Nageki's skin beneath his fingers, the repetitive massaging motions, the knowledge that he's helping ease Nageki's discomfort in one of the vanishingly few ways he is still capable of. For the few minutes he does this every day, Hitori can forget about the Dove Party and their lunatic conspiracies and the fact that the doctor who hurt Nageki is still out there, alive.

Afterward, Hitori re-dresses the area. Nageki lingers on the bed for a few minutes before going to get his pajamas, not quite close enough to touch, but still near enough for Hitori to be able to hear his breathing and feel his body warmth. The tension in Hitori's chest unspools.

-

That night, Hitori dreams that he's back in the medical facility. Nageki is in the hidden basement room, illuminated by the flickering light of the flames that lick across the floor, watching Hitori with reproachful eyes. This time, he slams the door shut before Hitori can make it inside, and Hitori pounds and pounds on the metal, but he knows with sickening certainty that it's too late, that inside, Nageki is burning. 

-

Hitori wakes to pressure at his back and the warmth of frail arms wrapped around his middle. His heartbeat is pounding a thousand miles a minute. He feels dizzy and sick. He breathes.

It takes several moments to remember where, and when, he is.

"Nageki?" he says quietly. Nageki makes a soft sound of acknowledgement. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you."

Nageki says nothing, but maintains his hold on him. Hitori brings his hand to rest atop Nageki's. He feels the rough spot where skin gives way to bandages.

Hitori wants to say a hundred things. _I'm sorry. I love you. I should have found you sooner. I'd rather die than lose you again._ Instead, he interlaces his fingers with Nageki's, and breathes in time with the pulse of Nageki's heartbeat, and lets himself feel selfishly grateful that Nageki is still here with him.

-

He can still vividly remember the moment he was first let in to see Nageki after the fire, when Nageki was still bandaged up and breathing through a tube and too full of pain medication to even be awake to see Hitori there beside him. Hitori had only been allowed to hold a tiny square of exposed skin, but just feeling the living heat of Nageki's fingers had filled him with such a painful, aching sense of love that he had wanted to never let go. He's felt echoes of that sensation, muffled but still just as warm, just as desperately miraculous, in every touch since.

He knows they're not safe here at the Dove Party headquarters; they won't be truly out of danger until the party scientists can find a vaccine for the rare virus that lingers in Nageki's system, and possibly not even then. Each new day brings new risk and uncertainty. And that's on top of everything they've already lost, all the raw pain they are both still learning how to navigate.

But even so, the fact remains: he is alive, and Nageki is alive, and they're together. For as long as that is the case, Hitori will continue to hope for the future.

He sleeps deeply, Nageki close beside him, and doesn't wake again until morning.


End file.
